Monday, April 23, 2012

Post-racism so far has been nothing short of disappointing. Until, and unless you read Noam Chomsky, you're never going to appreciate how far afield normal nationalism has become to the intelligentsia. There are tens, if not thousands, of Americans labouring today to tell you that pride of nationalism is wrong, that the system that has created the greatest wealth for a nation the world has ever seen is wrong, and that those reactionaries who attempt to defend the system that brought us that wealth are anti-science and anti-otherthings.

The latest crack in reason--in a multicultural world--occurred when the meme created a new bifurcation in the socio-political arena. The creation of the "White Hispanic."

I'm a White Guy.

I've been a White Guy before Race became an issue in assessing appropriate outcomes*. Some time ago, during the 1960's, it became apparent that there were differences between Whites and Minorities. In America, White People owned more stuff than Not White People. In the 1970's, it was discovered that Men owned more stuff than Women. Owning stuff was an indicator of status, and so it was determined that, in order for Not White People and Women to have status (equal or greater than Not Women White People) we needed Government Action to Correct the Prejudicial Inequalities observed in terms of Stuff and Other Stuff.

Not White People and Women needed more Stuff. And Other Stuff. Not having Stuff, and Other Stuff, was Statistically Proven in Studies. ("Studies", in the 1950's and 1960's is what is called Science, today.) By the 1970's we had created a pretty well defined playing field of Not White/Women versus Everyone Else. Or, if you're not White and Male, you have achieved the status of Being the Other.

Completing the Sartreian Puzzle of, if you're not who you are, then who is?

Got it?

Being, simply isn't enough. Or wasn't enough. (I mean "being" as in mere "existence.) It is the conditions under which you exist that define who you are. Externally imposed conditions are anti-...(ellipsis intended.)

Internally imposed conditions are preferred, but only if they are imposed in order to achieve equality for those who are Not White People and Women. This is one of the characteristics of what we usually call a
Cult, but, that's so harsh. Being a Socialist, or Communist, or Progressive, or Democrat, well, one simply doesn't want to apply the label "cult," no matter how well deserved. And yet The Priesthood of the Left includes many noted icons; Al Gore (AlBearManPig), Barrack Obama (Look at the mess we inherited), Senate President "We Won't Pass A Budget" Reid, Nancy "We'll know what's in the Bill After We Pass It" Pelosi, Elizabeth "Nobody Ever Made It On Their Own" Warren, Tim "Turbo-Tax" Geithner--who also knows that the economy is on a self-destruct course, but calls Paul Ryan crazy--and then that special kinda crazy, from Al Sharpton and Attorney General Eric Holder.

So this is where the whole narrative of the White Hispanic starts tearing away from the fabric of the wheels of logic as the political talking point starts turning into the corner: what legitimacy does a man have, whose father was never, from what I've seen, an American slave, nor the scion of an American slave; whose mother was a pampered Loser White Chick with a passion for the Black Revolutionairy; and to whose grandmother was given the off-spring of this ill-fated union when motherhood became too dreary? To be raised as the dependent of a banker's family in Hawaii, and who went to the best schools?

Obama has nothing to do with America's Black History. He's the off-spring of a Johnny Come Lately and a Crazy White Chick, who took advantage of Affirmative Action. Affirmative Action was meant to help America's Blacks. President Obama was never an American Black. Raised by affluent White People.A phoney. The Editor of the Harvard Law Review, without a single submission. The man who calls himself a Professor of Constitutional Law, who never had a professorship. Nor, as an assistant professor. An instructor.

What you are called, and what you call others is important. President Obama? Not Black. Not a professor. Not a Constitutional Law Professor. Not the descendent of slavery. Pampered and coddled. Having to clean out the garage on Saturday is the White Boy's Burden.

But now, we have the White Hispanic. White! Cracka!

"If I had a son, he would look like Treyvon."

Cracka. Playing you for a fool.

I've heard that Obama and the Democrats are playing the Hispanic Card.

Good luck on that.

*Race was an issue, of course, when I was born. It's just that the cure wasn't socialism.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Did you realize that 17 different drivers are in the points already this
year? Last year, only 19 drivers were able to earn points during the
entire season.

I think Nico can get past Mark, and I haven't seen Abbey off to any real
good starts this year. If Lewis and Jenson an avoid driving into each
other, they have a good chance at pulling off an early pass. If there's
problems, I look to Nico to take advantage. And never forget Schuey. If
Mark has one of his WTF starts, look for Schumacher to throw an elbow
for his boy.

I'd love to see Alonso come through, but he is adamant, they simply
haven't the pace. And from what I've seen of the track, this is not a
Ferrari friendly venue.

I'm going to have to go with a re-play of Australia; Button, Vettel and
another 3rd for Lewis. With a Sixth Place finish for Alonso, that would
put Fernando just one point behind Seb after for races. And I look to
Ferrari to come up with some substantive technological changes before
Spain.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Just got back from the GOP bunker, where all the planning for the War On Women is taking place.

Lint got a lot of attention. It seems lint gets into certain fabrics and makes clothing unwearable, unless one is willing to display lint. I think lint is less a concern with lower-income brackets, especially for sweat pant wearing women. Which is the beauty of the whole lint attack on women. It's going to target the most prominent, the wealthiest women. Beneficiaries of this attack include male owners of cleaners. "Can you do anything about this lint?" will be on the lips of millions of women across America. And this is just lint.

Wait until you see the body image ads that are going to be coming out over the next several weeks. Thin women with enhanced bosoms and slim waists talking about the lady leading lights of the Democrat party; Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, to name a few. Pretty lady standing in a split-screen next to a picture of the D ladies. Cut to shots of presenters walking in bikinis on the Nation's Beaches. While talking about access to birth control pills, abortifacients and abortion. And pointing out how silly it is for women like Wasserman-Schultz, Clinton and Albright to worry about birth control. Carrying coal to Newcastle, and all that.

As we advance the Republican War on Women, it's important that we never lose sight of the Democrat Defense of Women. When the opening shots in the War on Women were fired, all of us were operating under the belief that our Shock and Awe Campaign would allow us to completely destroy women in days, if not weeks. I don't think we knew how credible a response to our War on Women would be generated by Democrats and the Media.

When our plans to outlaw birth control were lost to the enemy--due to Swedish hackers--George Stephanopoulos was able to grill one of our presidential candidates (Mitt Romney) on the details of those plans. Wow. Never saw that coming. We were sure that we could wait until after the election to outlaw birth control, restore our missile defense plans and pick a war with Russia. We just didn't want to talk about before the election. Can you say "Wiki-leak?"

Then, the Fluke Disaster.

There have been changes that have taken place inside the Republican War on Women Bunker. Who thought a woman in an elite law academy could give testimony to her wanton sexual proclivities, and with a straight face ask a Nation to pay for her life-style choices? Heads had to roll. We needed new leaders, and for awhile, it seemed that a Romney-Santorum-Gingrich Axis had been formed to re-ignite our War on Women. Especially Santorum. Wow. Who coulda thought that a Catholic with conviction could raise such dust?

Worse, that this Fluke woman would choose to attend a Catholic University, and demand abortifacients and birth control pills? On par with a woman attending Hebrew University demanding bacon on her cheese burgers. This total lack of intellectual honesty wasn't well understood in the old WOW Bunker. That religious institutions would have beliefs that were contrary to the well-understood mantra of the Women was one of our most prized weapons in our war. (Once you enter the Bunker you're issued a blanket of religious beliefs which you must wrap around you. And you can't go anywhere, even the bathroom, without being wrapped in your blanket.)

And now, there is gloom in the Republican Bunker for the War on Women. Little did we know that the President could simply cross-out the First Amendment and end religious institutions' freedom, and simply require the adoption of the policies of their government. Losing the First Amendment was an unforeseen loss. All the action for years were centered around Second Amendment concerns. And recent Supreme Court decisions recognizing the rights of Americans to own guns may have distracted us from the simple expediency of a President simply crossing certain rights off the list.

So, there have been set-backs in our War on Women. The failure of our Shock and Awe Campaign has been disappointing, to say the least. We had hoped that by this time in the current election cycle, that millions of women would have disappeared from the Nation's workplaces. Under the motto of "Bare-foot and Pregnant," millions of women would find themselves in their kitchens, rustlin' up some pots and pans. Demand for plastic surgeries would lead to an expansion in health care training colleges, as the Stepford Rules were adopted by state legislatures across the country, sparking economic recovery. So far, fewer than a million women have found themselves displaced from the workplace. Another unexpected defeat for the Republican War on Women.

I suggested a change in our war plans. Instead of relying upon a Trickle Down War, what we needed was a campaign from the Grass Roots. Guerrilla warfare, as it were. Sadly, it seems, we have been the victim of a preemptive strike, again, from the Defenders of Women. And their grass-roots campaign.

Paid for and organized by labour unions.

Remember, the spontaneous creation of the Tea Party Movement--sparked by a comment from Rick Santelli.

Clear simple exposition on the state of the mortgage crisis. "You can't buy your way into prosperity." Radical stuff. The Declaration of War on Women. (Yes, you can find Rick in the Bunker, occasionally. His rank is Field Marshall.)

Contrast this spontaneous rise, which Speaker Pelosi referred to as "astroturf," with the Grass Roots Efforts of the American Federation of Government Employees:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

On April 28, 2012, the grassroots movement Unite Against the War on Women will manifest itself on the steps of the Capitol in Salem, Oregon. Unite’s mission is to protect and advance women's rights at all levels and across our lifespan. These priority areas include women’s reproductive rights; women's economic equality and workers’ rights; protecting women and children from violence & abuse; voting rights; and women’s wellness, health and safety.

These speakers stand in solidarity with Unite Against the War on Women: Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown; DHS Director of Community Engagement and Retired Oregon State Senator Margaret Carter; Indian Law Coordinator at Lewis and Clark College, Board Chairperson and Community Outreach coordinator of Red Lodge Transition Services Board Member Carma Corcoran Tribal membership Chippewa-Cree; Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain; National Director of Legal Technical Assistance & Training at Victim Rights Law Center and Adjunct Professor at Lewis & Clark Law School, National Sexual Violence Resource Center Advisory Council Jessica Mindlin; Retired Judge Ellen Rosenblum; American Federation of Government Employees District 11 National Vice President Gerald Swanke; Publisher-Owner of El Hispanic News and PQ Monthly Melanie Davis; Portland Executive Director of Jobs with Justice Margaret Butler; TransActive Executive Director Jenn Burleton; Portland City Council Member Amanda Fritz, and many more… There will also be performances by local artists, The Raging Grannies of Portland, the Raging Grannies of Corvallis, a Patchwork Family, The Marissa Mission, and Kendra Moon, to name a few!

Unite is a nonpartisan organization that works to inform and educate others, to increase women's participation in the political and legislative process using tools like Get Out The Vote, to ensure that women's voices are represented in legislative and policy-making roles, and to cultivate an intergenerational network of women in communities to identify and share global concerns with others. Unite strongly supports diversity and welcomes women and men of all ages without regard to their race, color, creed, political affiliation, disability, religious or spiritual beliefs, sexual orientation, education or income level, or marital, employment, or immigrant status.

Please contact: Amanda Schroeder,
Oregon State Lead Organizer – Unite Against the War on Women
Amandaschroeder.nwacd11@yahoo.com 202-258-9009

Talk about "astroturf."

I gotta head back to the Bunker. The Republican War on Women continues, but it's looking more and more like Stalingrad. We need to re-think our strategic goals. How can we better attack women in order to win our war? If you have any ideas you'd like to have advanced in the Bunker, leave them in the comments. Unless we all share in the struggle to win this war, chances are we're going to lose.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Develop a problem. Then, come up with a solution for this unnecessary problem.

God, I love being an American.

Back in the '60's, there where some real problems. Pollution. Small towns like Portland couldn't see Mt. Hood from Barbur Boulevard on bad pollution days. Now, the distance from Barbur to Mt. Hood was fifty miles. A lot of those days where the Mount wasn't visible was due to inclement weather. But the view to Mt. Hood became an iconic standard of how to judge pollution in Portland.

Later, I moved to Astoria. The Columbia River is about five miles wide. When you couldn't see Washington from Astoria, we learned that there are things called clouds and rain. They occlude vision. When you can't see Washington from Astoria, it's raining. When you can, it's about to rain.

There isn't any pollution being created in Astoria. No visual pollution. There's no pollution being created in Knappa, Ranier, or Clatskanie. There is no pollution being created in Scappoose. And yet, the State of Oregon is trying to scale the "pollution" in Portland to the cities along the Columbia River. The worst example of all, is the Boardman Plant in...(wait for it)...Boardman.

The things that make it hard for us to see Mt. Hood from Barbur, are the things that are closing down a major power plant for the state of Oregon. Haze. The coal-fired plant at Boardman creates haze. Haze. Oh, and thanks to recent decisions from the Environmental Protection Agency, mercury. You know. Charlie Tuna stuff.

Mercury.

You have any clue how many half-assed studies have been done on Mercury? How many have been de-bunked? Autism. Mercury. "Close those coal-fired plants!!!!"

If you're looking for your local newspaper to tell you the truth, get over it. Mercury okay.

"MERCURY OKAY!!!"

Not going to happen. The political movement to grant greater power to the government, and take that power away from the people (you and me), aren't concerned with corrections for stories that mis-represent the truth. The slow accretion of misrepresentations over time, have a cumulative effect; we begin to believe that all the examples of a thing we've read about over years, is self-reinforcing. After decades of believing that the Press is actually reporting the Truth, we're reduced to reading the Press, and believing that we're reading the Truth.

Simple syllogism. But mercury isn't the hazard that we've all been told it is. Take away the autism claim, and where to do the mercury alarmists reside? What is the harm of exposure to mercury?

What if incidental exposure to mercury is simply incidental exposure to mercury? That is, there is no long-term or short-term effect?

Hysteria about mercury would end. We've been eating tuna with "elevated levels of mercury" for decades. It wasn't until the Autism Scare that mercury became an issue. And now that we find that the results were falsified, has there been a scale-back of mercury scares?

Why is it, that the EPA is so worried about mercury, when it comes to coal-fired power plants? Look, the President has been forthcoming in his statements about the "future of America."

We won't invest in "alternative" power sources until the costs of conventional power sources "have necessarily skyrocketed." How do you drive up the costs of conventional power sources? Regulate them out of business!

Easy!

The billions upon billions of dollars this President has wasted chasing his dream of "Green Technology" is getting old. The only technologies that make economic sense are those technologies that make economic sense. Take out the hundreds of billions of dollars that our federal and state governments have "GIVEN" to alternative energy sources, and you find that only coal-fired, oil-fired, and natural gas fired power plants have a product--cheap electricity--that meets the demands of a market-based supply for energy. Scare tactics? Would the Obama Administration resort to scare tactics to attempt to achieve it's goals for Green Energy?

The United States has been for years, the biggest, most robust economy on the face of the Earth.

Our President is bringing this era to a close. For whatever reasons; whether it's an end to American Imperialism, and end to White Man Rules, the end of Corporate Corruption, the end to The Wealthy Living Off the Poor Folks, the End of an Era When Corporations Are More Important Than The Middle Class, or simply, you dumb fucks don't know how to count your toes, it is clear that our President has no more understanding of what motivates business to invest, buy and create, than would a former Instructor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago.

I can't name a single technology innovation that has been revealed, since the ascendency of President Barrack Obama. I can't. Neither wind, nor rain, nor storm of night. No break-out in distribution. No break-out in solar, wind or geo-thermal. Not one single break-through, after billions have been spent. Not one.

We've created a lot of problems. Carbon, mercury, capitalism, the Rich. Lots of problems.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Recently, Senator Wyden press released on his "concern" about crude oil futures and other derivatives trading. I know the Senator has been in Washington for a long time, and thinks he is a Master of the Universe. And, living in the Senate, which has refused to pass a budget in three years, there's reason to believe that the Democrat Senators are in fact, our Masters.

Yet, his lack of understanding of how markets work is illustrated by his own bold text, in the referred to press release:

In their letter, the lawmakers express concerns that commodity index funds, are “disrupting both our commodities markets and our economy.” They note that, “Commodity index funds are a relatively recent creation, but they are already having an outsized impact on our commodity markets,” and that “Through its control of commodity index funds, Wall Street is driving up gas and food prices and playing a sadly familiar game with the American consumer and small-business: heads I win, tails you lose.”

If only.

Speculators are horned deamons when it comes to Democrats. Not understanding how markets work, or how markets attempt to work, gives us monstrosities like Frank-Dodd. (Or, in Oregon, absurdities like Community Care Organizations, whose mission it is to decrease costs, by increasing the bureaucracy.)

"Speculation in the wheat market not only smooths out prices and consumption over the course of the year but over longer periods, too. A bumper crop in one year, due to unusually favorable weather, will lead to some price decline. But speculators, sensing (or guessing) that prices will be higher in subsequent years, buy wheat and thereby prevent as large a price decline as would otherwise have occurred. In the year of relatively small crop or unusually large consumption, prices rise: but, to the extent that stocks exist, the rise will be moderated by the release of inventories, to get the benefit of the higher-than normal prices * And so long as inventories last, prices will not rise above an upper limit beyond which no market participant believes the price can remain. It can go on higher--so long as price expectations are unchanged."

Gardner Ackley.

This isn't some Spencerian social evolution devotee. Regulation, outlawing markets don't create market efficiencies. Sensing that there are some who are afraid of living their own lives, making their own businesses, taking responsibility for their own investments doesn't make highly touted law. This is pettifogging of the worst degree: taking a hard to understand concept, and making it the enemy.

Shame on Ron for doing this. Markets don't need shepherding of this type. This is populism writ large. What they don't understand, condemn.

But he's a Duck. What would you expect. (Give them books, and all they do is eat the covers.)

*"It is probably unnecessary to remind the reader that the wheat "speculator" ordinarily is a person who also has other interests in the wheat business--a farmer, a dealer, or a flour miller, for instance--who needs to hold inventories of wheat in connection with his other activities but can easily alter the size of his inventories in response to speculative conditions."

Monday, April 2, 2012

I like statistics. I like them, because a good data set can give you information.

I hate the Social Sciences. I hate them, because they abuse the definitions of Statistics. Sure, they're good about some of the fundamentals, and to be frank, the fundamentals can help a serious inquiry to move forward. In the hands of Social Scientists, however, the fundamentals of Statistical Science are transformed, from observation to fact.

Let's take an example of the value of statistics; you have a fair coin flip (.pdf) , on one side Heads, on the other, Tails. "For tossed coins, the classical assumptions of independence with probability 1/2 are pretty solid."

Inference and deduction are two extremely different fields. People who try to infer from deduction fail, since the rules of inference are distinct from the rules of deduction. The opposite is true in most cases. That is, you cannot claim deduction from inference, while you can claim inference from deduction. A colour is not necesarily Yellow. Yellow is necessarily a colour. It is necessary that Yellow is a colour, just as it is necessary that that "2" is a number. "2" as anything else requires an outside determination of meaning that is not implied by the necessary meaning of 2 is 2. 2 is 2 is sufficient and necessary. Just as we define the rules of examination of things, as either being sufficient or necessary, we view the science of Statistics, and the limited fields of inquiry under which are studies, as being the result of both sufficient and necessary conditions.

How reason plays into all this is played out on television screens all across the world. There is no assertion of logic, only of observation. Which, sadly, is how most Important Social Science studies are reported; there is no statistical evidence that points to dis-proving the thesis of the object of the study. That is, there is no attempt to show that the evidence, supposedly evidenced by the data set, does anything more than report random noise.

Take the coin toss exercise above. We can demonstrate all kinds of conditions that may affect the coin toss, and yet, if it is a fair coin, none of these exercises demonstrate nothing more than would could be, at best, described as conditional effects. If you try to cheat, you can. Does Capitalism "Kill People"? Well, people are being killed, others die. Inasmuch as capitalism is the dominant form of market formation, blaming Capitalism for death is as likely as blaming growing old. (And frankly, growing old is a much more supportable hypothesis than capitalism. I don't know anyone living in a Socialist state over the age of three hundred years.)

Identity is valid, in pre-existing states, as a normal staring point for inference. But critics of Frege have made more important mistakes, than that that which was attempted to be demonstrated, that is, as much as any thing is defined as that thing, looking further into a sense of intuition of what that thing demonstrates, is an illogical extension, that can't be supported by the thing itself.

Triangles aren't square, no matter how distorted the view of the triangle.

Social Sciences aren't limited in the way that criticisms of Frege have been. Like Frege, this is not a technical work. Understanding the tools of technique, and failing to use them, isn't sufficient to undermine the theory of the essay. That this essay can be criticized for failing to include the technical tools to examine the thesis of this paper, doesn't do more than polish the facets of this paper. Having a critical basis for examining the Social Sciences doesn't impute that they are valid, since this paper doesn't take any individual paper and explore the weaknesses of that particular paper. This paper only wants to examine the general trends of what passes for Science, under the heading of Social Science, and draw your attention to their general failings. Their procedural failings.

All I'm attempting to do here, now, is point out that a lot of the failings of what attempts to pass itself off as Science is nothing, if mere imputation of dominant Modes, Means and Standard Deviations. Coming off with an SD isn't more that mere manipulation of the data set. I can ask myself a question, answer it, and come up with a test of significance that approaches the 99-point-nine percent level. Is it statistics?

The more I hear chatter about the effects of "this" or "that", I'm reminded of the case that how you define the question more often than not, defines the answer. In Statistics, we call this a confounding error. The questions you ask are more important than the answers you get. Garbage in, garbage out. If you don't understand the value of your questions, how can you begin to measure the value of the answers you receive in response?

"Is this yellow or blue?"

Simple question. The data set should be simple, too. But do we ever examine why the respondent answers "yellow," when the answer is clearly "blue"? No. Too rarely do we examine the structures of how question are asked, and why they are answered the way they are. We never ask the "check" question. "Are you colour blind?"

And so it goes. We get more and more information, but none of it is formatted in a way that follows a simple model:

Is it true?

Is it reflective of the intention of the question?

Is it verifiable?

Nope, we live in a Time of Science, and everyone is publishing Science every day. Does the Science advance an agenda? Then, let's give it more money. Does the Science offend anyone? Let's defund.

P.K. wasn't admired by a lot of his peers. His peers had standards that P.K. often violated. But, P.K. admitted it. It was true. Without the limitations of the strict constructions of "science," a lot of what has become realized as Scientific Discovery wouldn't today exist.

We should ask ourselves, how do we know that ObamaCare will in fact lower Health Care Costs? The answer is, we don't ask. Those of us who engage in investments, operating businesses, hiring and firing employees know instinctively that increases in bureaucracy inherently means increases in costs a natural consequence of government involvement at any stage in the process of living, creating and doing or simply, being, are being joshed out of these criticisms with logos such as "Change," 'Hope," or "the Ninety-Nine."

Strongly worded chants don't change fundamentals. I aver, that if you have any kind of sentient intellect, that the mere chanting of words would, on their face, seem more hideously primitive, and anti-science, than the opposite...criticism. The mantra of Obama isn't change, it's tribalism. It's not a move to a "post-Racial" nation, but a return to primitive differences. That which we don't understand, we fear.

How does this advance the Nation?

What is the cheapest, and best way to lower your health care cost exposure?

Come on, you know what it is. But what do you give up, in terms of your human experience, in order to simply reduce your costs? What is the opportunity cost of living to an hundred and twenty?

Sunday, April 1, 2012

I wrote about the abysmal failure of NBC news to report accurately, here.

According to the Washington Post, NBC is looking into the matter. I know that Fox is referred to as "faux" news by the intelligentsia. Without Fox, would this deliberate slander against Zimmerman been reported?